A KY man pardoned by Bevin takes the stand to claim his innocence in new murder trial
The Kentucky man pardoned on a state homicide charge but now facing a federal murder charge testified in his defense Friday, flatly denying he committed the crime.
After asking Patrick Baker to state his name, defense attorney Steve Romines’ first question was whether Baker killed Donald Mills, a Knox County drug dealer.
“Absolutley not,” Baker said. “Never shot the guy.”
Baker, 43, is charged with shooting Mills in the chest while trying to rob him of pain pills and money in May 2014.
Baker was convicted of reckless homicide in Mills’ death in state court in 2017 and sentenced to 19 years in prison.
However, then-Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned him in December 2019. The pardon was among hundreds Bevin issued in his final days in office, but Baker’s has been controversial because members of his family had held a political fundraiser for Bevin the year before he let Baker out of prison.
A former fiancee of Baker’s told federal authorities she thought the fundraiser was crucial in winning his freedom, but Bevin has denied politics had anything to do with his decision.
Federal authorities opened a case on Baker after the pardon. The case involves the same homicide, but the federal charge is different than the state charge because it alleges Baker killed Mills during a drug crime.
Prosecution witnesses said Baker was addicted to oxycodone and running short of money in May 2014; that he tried to recruit others in a plan to rob Mills; that he had a Google Earth image of Mills’ mobile home in Stinking Creek on his iPad; and that he told them he shot Mills.
One man, Christopher Wagner, testified he went with Baker to Mills’ home, holding Mills’ wife and children at gunpoint in one bedroom while Baker went with Mills to another bedroom to try to find pills.
Wagner said he heard shots and that Baker told him as they were fleeing that Mills had pulled a gun and Baker had to shoot him.
Wagner also testified he went with Baker to an old surface coal mine in Bell County after the shooting, where they buried parts of the murder weapon and threw another part over the hill.
‘No reason to rob a guy’
On Friday, Baker flatly contradicted the witnesses against him, in testimony so soft-spoken the judge reminded him several times to speak up.
Baker acknowledged he developed an addiction to pain pills after a motorcycle wreck, but that he had the means to get drugs without robbing anyone.
“There was no reason for me to rob a guy,” Baker said.
Nathan Wagner testified Baker owed him money from a gambling debt in May 2014 and that Baker talked to him about robbing Mills, but Baker said that wasn’t true.
He and Wagner had been in business at one time but fell out, Baker said.
Baker said a drug friend of his, Stephanie Smith, brought up the idea to rob Mills, a large-scale drug dealer, but that he told her no.
Later, when he and Christoper Wagner went to the home of a man named Adam Messer, who lived near Mills, to try to get pills, there was more talk of robbing Mills, but Baker said he again refused.
“I told’m I wasn’t gonna be any part of it,” Baker said.
Baker said Messer and his brother Elijah laughed about having robbed people before. Elijah Messer had taken Baker to Mills’ house two days before to buy 60 pain pills.
Baker said that while he was waiting to try to get pills from Adam Messer, he stepped outside often to smoke.
Once while he was out, Adam Messer drove off in Baker’s Ford F-150 pickup truck with Wagner, returning about 45 minutes to an hour later.
Baker said Messer told him to make sure Wagner kept quiet or someone would get hurt, and he and Wagner left Messer’s house.
Baker said he didn’t know what Messer was talking about, but as they left, Wagner told him he’d gone with Messer to rob Mills and that Messer shot the drug dealer using Baker’s 9mm pistol, which had been in the truck.
Messer has denied killing Mills.
‘Tore up’
Baker said he was “tore up” about having his truck and gun used in a crime. He drove Wagner to a former surface coal mine where Wagner had once worked and told him to get rid of the 9mm pistol, Baker said.
As they drove back to London, Messer called and threatened him, saying he knew Baker’s family, including his girlfriend and her son.
Baker said that’s why he didn’t tell police about what Wagner had told him.
Baker’s ex-wife testified Baker told her he had killed Mills, but Baker said Friday that he actually told her he felt responsible for what happened because his addiction played a role, not that he killed Mills.
Surveillance video of Baker buying toy handcuffs at a Dollar General store a few hours before the murder has played a role in the case, because the two men who forced their way into Mills’ home just after 5 a.m. posed as police, and there was a pair of toy handcuffs left at the scene.
But Baker said he bought the cuffs as a birthday gift for his girlfriend’s son. Romines entered evidence that Baker had bought similar toy cuffs two months earlier.
Baker said the boy liked the cuffs but had broken the ones he had.
Prosecutor questions story
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Reed questioned Baker’s story, noting his drug habit was costing perhaps $3,700 a month or more, at a time Baker was between jobs, and introducing evidence Baker was pawning items to get cash in the weeks before the homicide.
Baker had pawned the gun used in the case, but had gotten it back on May 7, about 36 hours before Mills was shot.
Reed also pointed out instances in which Baker had lied.
For instance, on the form he had to sign to get back his gun at the pawn shop, he certified he was not an illegal drug user, even though he was.
And after he was arrested on the federal charge, he told a pretrial release officer he had been given a drug one time that he assumed was methamphetamine, but acknowledged under cross-examination that that was not true.
When Reed asked Baker whether he was aware that the GPS location data on his cell phone was turned off after May 8, the day before Mills was killed, Baker said he assumed he turned it off.
The prosecutor suggested that Baker’s account that several people, including some who didn’t know him, teamed up to frame him; that he left the keys in his truck at the house of a felon he’d just met; and that the felon, Adam Messer, took along a man he’d just met while committing a robbery, didn’t make sense.
Baker, however, repeated that he did not rob or kill Mills, and that he had never even been in Mills’ house.
Also on Friday, one of Baker’s attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom to acquit Baker without letting the case go to the jury.
The attorney, Patrick Renn, argued the government failed to provide enough evidence against Baker to allow a reasonable jury to decide he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
However, the prosecutor, Reed, argued that she had presented ample proof against Baker to let the jury decide his fate.
Among other things, witnesses testified about Baker trying to recruit other people to take part, and forensics tests linked shell casings found in Mills’ home after he was shot with a gun traced to Baker, Reed said.
Boom said she would reserve ruling on the defense request until later.
The trial is scheduled to continue Monday.
Baker faces up to life in prison if convicted.
This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 4:03 PM.
